Thread by @all_sudanese

*Political Corruption & Organised Crime*

Tuesday 11 May, 2021
(Washington DC; London)

#SouthSudan #Sudan #SSOT

Today, the elder brother of the late Dr. Ding Col Dau Ding (1) released the second part of his “Personal Reflection”. It is published in full below:

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*Political Corruption and Organised Crime in South Sudan*

*Part Two of Three*

Following decades of a post-independence civil war - with a hiatus of an intermittent peace process in the 1970s which led to some governance stability and development in the then…

…southern Sudan, including the instituting of an organised law enforcement and criminal justice system - a second civil war erupted in 1983.

This second civil war ultimately led to southern Sudan’s independence in 2011 under the auspices of…

…the “Sudan Peoples Liberation Army” (SPLA); and its political wing, the “Sudan People’s Liberation Movement” (SPLM). The second Sudan civil war was notable for its violent and other illicit activities on all sides of the conflict. Illicit activities which many observers…

…labelled as war crimes. Yet within the spectre of a fight for freedom from a common enemy, accountability for these crimes was ignored and overlooked. The lack of accountability still remains. Consequently, and since independence, violent and criminal behaviours have become…

…commonplace within the new country of South Sudan’s fledgling governance structures. Additionally, the propensity for political corruption and organised criminal activities to co-exist has increased. Several observers argue that it has worsened since South Sudan’s independence.

South Sudan is now considered to be a de facto “failed State”. A country whose governance and socioeconomic indicators stand at the bottom of global rankings within most independent reviews conducted annually. With this asserted mal-governance, a Hobbesian state of existence…

…has developed in the new country which is reflective of the society’s loss of trust in the rule of law and order.

As a consequence of decades of war, human displacement from their homes, poverty and death, this has been further compounded by a ubiquitous state of…

…“societal regression” amongst the majority of the population. With such a high degree of social regression, this may become malignant (violent) where the population reverts to a more feral form of survival. The reliance on a larger collective group’s identity which is…

…usually ethnocentric or religious in its predisposition, becomes a personal means of physical protection and socioeconomic maintenance. This societal regression aligned with failed and corrupted governance structures where criminal activities go unpunished, have been…

…considered to be the concomitant drivers of civil conflict within South Sudan. The association between malignant societal regression, political corruption and organised crime being exemplified by selective justice for crimes that are regularly perpetrated against…

…law-abiding individuals.

Organised crime groups occasionally out-source to third-parties the violent acts that need to be performed. Elements within and also out-with of South Sudan’s regular armed forces and security apparatuses - gangs and assassins which are colloquially…

…termed “Niggers”, “Unknown Gunmen”, or “Toronto Boys - are regularly recruited to undertake any violent act with the commensurate impunity from accountability made available afterwards.

The 2013 post-independence SPLM/SPLA conflict and its ongoing skirmishes, has…

…essentially been a turf war between the various fragmented SPLM subgroups. A territorial turf war over who will ultimately control the historical, liberation-time, “brand name” and legacy of the SPLM/SPLA with its inextricably linked politico-military benefits. A brand that…

…brings with it ready-made psychosocial-capital advantages that can then be employed by the victorious SPLM subgroup to continue to exploit the territories of the majority of South Sudan’s over ten million population. Territories that are endowed with lucrative natural…

…resources and socioeconomic benefits. Territories that are still owned by a diverse ethnic and cultural indigenous population comprising of at least 64 different tribes who are widely distributed within a new country that is over two and a half times the size of the…

…United Kingdom.

All of the SPLM subgroups foment insecurity and terror as a modus operandi within the sovereign territory of South Sudan. The SPLM-In Government (SPLM-IG) together with the SPLM-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) being the principle practitioners. As historically…

…reported in Sicily, southern Italy, with reprisal killings, South Sudan has similar inter-communal grievances that are intentionally stoked-up by its organised criminal groups and their networks in order to gain and retain control of lucrative sociopolitical and…

…socioeconomic territory. Cattle rustling, kidnapping, rape and murder are regularly employed and encouraged. Subjectively labelled as anthropological, and historical and cultural ethnic grievances and practices, these violent acts have been fomented by local SPLM subgroups’…

…members in order to promote their importance to a subgroup’s enterprise. With a socially regressed population, an inadequate criminal justice system, and a significant prevalence of firearms and weapons in the hands of civilians, the population resorts to a reliance on…

…vigilantism. Vigilantism and its associated instability which is encouraged by the SPLM-IG subgroup and the SPLM-IO. Interestingly, these types of violent incidents and crimes are reported as not having occurred during the unified SPLM group’s leadership under its former…

…leader, John Garang, without there being repercussions and punishment for perpetrators; nor under the southern Sudan governance of Abel Alier in the 1970s. This study’s interviewees agree that this has been intentionally fomented to create divisions within local populations…

…and communities. Divisions which have then been exploited to demand allegiances from a specific sub-population under the slogan of “the SPLM government will help us”. This is a similar strategy that was commonly employed by the @IntlCrimCourt International Criminal Court…

…(ICC) indicted former President of the Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, for 3 decades throughout the Sudan. A modus operandi for maintaining control over territory; and which ensured that any political dissent became fragmented and uncoordinated, and could ultimately be quelled.

Almost all of the responsibilities of any functional government are currently undertaken in South Sudan by one of the largest United Nations’ Missions @UN in the world (United Nations Mission In South Sudan - UNMISS) and by foreign donor-funded international non-governmental…

…organisations and humanitarian agencies. This has permitted the various SPLM subgroups to be able to focus primarily on their organised graft and rent-seeking activities without the consequences and burden of responsibility towards providing public services to the citizens…

…of the new country. The narrative that the SPLM government has routinely employed when criticised of this dependency is that these organisations are “South Sudan’s development partners”. In the same voice, known unscrupulous commercial activities are being undertaken by the…

…various SPLM subgroups with other foreign individuals and entities. When questioned about these partnerships, the individuals and entities are labelled as “foreign investors” by the SPLM subgroups; and even when some of the individuals and entities are alleged to have been…

…previously engaged in illicit and criminal activities in other countries, including the financing of foreign terrorist organisations via transnational organised crime groups.

It has been commonly conveyed that the sociopolitical governance ideology of South Sudan is…

…ethnocentrism or tribalism; and that this is what has resulted in a failure of leadership and a political deadlock in the new country. However, this notion can be challenged by the fact that the largest fragmented SPLM subgroup - the SPLM-IG - is composed of individuals and…

…allied-sub-groups that come from the most diverse range of ethnic groups and tribes in the country. Additionally, the very same Kiir-led SPLM-IG subgroup has been reported - and it has been noted empirically by other independent stakeholders - as violently targeting and…

…extrajudicially killing individuals which hail from the very same ethnic group as its powerful leader, Salva Kiir Mayardit. Killings which have taken place under SPLM-IG facilitated impunity, with SPLM-IG obstruction of attempts by law enforcement agents to apprehend and…

…prosecute identified perpetrators. Consequently, the ideology of the multi-ethnic cohort that comprises the SPLM-IG may be more appropriately described as "personal profit-making”. A Mafia-like organised crime group whose primary purpose is to repeatedly extract huge…

…profits from its activities under the umbrella and veneer of a legitimate sovereign government of a Nation-State. As with other continental African politico-military entities empowered-by-default with governance responsibilities, the SPLM automatically became “the guardian”…

…of the territory called southern Sudan in 2005. Unfortunately, and instead of developing into a law-abiding and transparently legitimate administrator, the post-liberation SPLM group transformed into an organised criminal group (a motivated offender) rationally engaging in…

…illicit activities.

The gaslighting that is mobilised by the malignantly narcissistic leadership over a socially regressed and vulnerable South Sudanese population, is undertaken to ensure that any leader of any subgroup is able to convey their alleged value to…

…being (and remaining) part of a particular SPLM subgroup’s enterprises. Thus far, and largely by virtue of Salva Kiir’s status as the recognised Head of State, the SPLM-IG subgroup garners most foreign international support; including military support from neighbouring…

…countries like Uganda. Kiir has been unequivocally supported by most of South Sudan’s foreign stakeholders, including by the Troika (the United States of America @StateDept @USMissionJuba, the United Kingdom @FCDOGovUK @UKinSouthSudan, and Norway @NorwayMFA @NorwayinSSudan),…

…and even amidst independently credible accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity being allegedly committed under his leadership. War crimes and crimes against humanity which the African Union @_AfricanUnion continental administrative and diplomatic bloc has…

…mandated an independent tribunal - the “African Union Hybrid Court for South Sudan” - to hear evidence and try alleged perpetrators within. However, the Kiir-led SPLM-IG subgroup has been obstructing for almost six years any transitional justice processes that would involve…

…punitive accountability. Encouragingly, the majority of the citizens of South Sudan do not agree with this call by the SPLM-IG for non-punitive justice and accountability.

*Dr. Dau Col Dau Ding*

In the third and final part of his “Personal Reflection”, Dr. @DauCol shall share the findings of his soon to be published seven year forensic investigation entitled: *“Violent Crime and Extremism in South Sudan:…

…The Modus Operandi of Organised Criminal Groups and Political Corruption”*.

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Justice For Dr Ding #Justice4DrDing

Justice For All South Sudanese #Justice4AllSouthSudanese

(1)
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